I spent way too much time thinking about this stuff.

My recent playing around with the daily note format, plus tinkering with Mastodon etc, and following the exploits of Dave Winer and others on their blogs, has made me start to think a bit more about how I would really like my blogging to work in an ideal world.

Most of my posts these days are effectively snippets – a link here, an aside there. It’s rare that I actually write longer posts (like this one!) that feature more than a paragraph and a link, and which justify their own title.

I type everything into Obsidian – as a desktop text editor – which has a simple WordPress integration that sends the text to be published online, converting Markdown to HTML along the way. Offline typing just feels much more natural to me and reduces down any anxiety around hitting that publish button (totally irrational, but there you go). The main downside of this approach is that the snippets I post only exists as parts of a longer, daily post; and also I can’t tag posts, only put them into a category.

The other issue is that posting these snippets to places like Mastodon and Twitter only happens when I remember to copy and paste them into each of those sites, or when I post a link to the daily summary post manually. Posting interesting links to Twitter used to be something I did all the time, and I got good feedback on it from folk.

The way this used to work, maybe 10 years ago or more, what that I would bookmark links into delicious (remember that?!), adding tags and commentary along the way. That then automatically tweeted them out, but also, thanks to a WordPress plugin, added them to a daily aggregated link roundup post, which gout published automatically every 24 hours. That was great! Although of course it only works for link-snippets, not simple asides.

I love the format that Jason Kottke seems to be using now. He posts links throughout the day, which seem to exist on their own on the site itself, but which emerge in his RSS feed as aggregated posts (“5 quick links for Tuesday afternoon… etc”). This seems sensible to me – although of course it’s hard to know these days how much of a thing RSS is.

Kottke.org runs on Moveable Type and, given it has existed for over 25 years, probably has a fair bit of custom stuff going on. I’m not sure what he uses as the main editor.

Dave Winer uses the outliner format for his blogging, which I have never quite managed to get my head around. He mostly posts snippets, which are individual posts that get published under the heading of the date they were published. Longer, titled items are also published within the flow and under the date banner too. This is totally understandable when you remember the outliner format:

• Date
  • Snippet 1
  • Snipper 2
  • Title for longer post
    • Content of longer post
  • Snipper 3

And so on.

Each snippet, and paragraph within a titled, longer, post has it’s own permalink, so you can point to just that item or paragraph. Dave’s system is custom, I guess, and having had a dig around his site, I can’t quite figure out which iteration of his online outliner tool is the current one to use for blogging. Am sure there would be a way of posting to it via a desktop text editor or outliner, but am not sure my tech chops would be up to figuring it out.

Maybe micro.blog is the answer, but I can’t see myself migrating away from WordPress for various reasons. But it must be possible to build out a micro.blog-esque approach in WordPress, using customer post types integrated with a desktop text editor, which maybe can also aggregate snippets into daily roundup posts like Kottke.org along the way? Oh, and which makes for easy tagging and distribution around place like Mastodon and (while it lasts) Twitter?

Maybe?!

• I’m playing again on Mastodon, mostly because Twitter is starting to feel more broken than ever. I’m not altogether happy about it, mind. I think a big part of it is that all the things that Mastodon wants to fix in Twitter, I don’t have a problem with. I just want Twitter, but not run by some techbozo.
  • https://mastodon.social/@davebriggs
• I have an account on the mastodon.social server (that I even need to say this highlights a problem for mass adoption of Mastodon) while Mark says it’s actually better to just run your own (ditto). I suspect the biggest problem I have is the size of my network (76 following, 45 followers on Mastodon vs 7,076 and 7,693 on Twitter) which is going to take time and effort to build up.
• Bluesky is apparently another Twitter replacement that has some momentum, but is currently invite only and I’m not invited. The fact that it describes itself as a "protocol for public conversation" worries me. Most people don’t want a Twitter like service to be portable and federated. They just want it to not suck.
  • https://blueskyweb.xyz/
• Dave Winer keeps on working on these things
  • http://textcasting.org/
• Maybe as I type these notes into my text editor I ought to be copy and pasting them individually across Twitter and Mastodon too… or maybe I ought to look into rigging something up so it all kind of works automagically.
• "a comprehensive guide to the story of mel" – I can remember obsessing over bits of hacker folklore like this when I first discovered the internet and this particular bit of its subculture
  • https://melsloop.com/
• This from Matt Mullenweg, ruminating on the 20th anniversary of WordPress, struck a chord with me: "That’s what is beautiful about blogging. It’s too bad the advertising and social media platforms got us all caught up in status games for the past 15 years…All you need is one view, one like, one comment, to change your life."
  • https://ma.tt/2023/05/power-of-one/
• Mimestream looks an interesting Gmail client for Mac
  • https://mimestream.com/
• Carl has started a new blog
  • https://mutuallearning.wordpress.com/
• The Theranos story is one of the most interesting chunks of Silicon Valley hubris in recent times. I really enjoyed reading Bad Blood by John Carreyrou which documented the story, although was published before the legal process completed. This Guardian article is a useful primer
  • https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/30/elizabeth-holmes-enters-prison-11-year-sentence
• Mike Bracken on innovating digital public services
  • https://hellofuture.com/news/mike-bracken-on-innovating-digital-public-services/

• I’ve been busy getting married! and also being ill
  • Saturday was amazing, beautiful weather, a nice simple ceremony and then a party with many of our favourite people. Am a very happy and contented man right now
  • However I then got a cold almost immediately, with the coughing, sneezing and sore throating meaning I haven’t slept well all week. Just pleased we didn’t go on an immediate honeymoon, otherwise it might have been wrecked
• I’ve finally finished and published a long article I have been working on and talking to people about for forever. Am hoping it’s the start of many more conversations
  • https://sensibletech.co.uk/a-framework-for-council-technology-planning/
• The above article received praise from Tom Loosemore, which was jolly nice
  • https://twitter.com/tomskitomski/status/1661696283688484865
• Matt Edgar’s review of 10 years of digital transformation
  • https://blog.mattedgar.com/2023/05/21/marks-out-of-ten-how-are-we-doing-after-a-decade-of-public-digital-transformation/
• Books:
  • I just finished The Ruin of All Witches by Malcolm Gaskill, which was brilliant
  • Then I polished off Christian Beginnings by Geza Vermes, which I started last year and put to one side for some reason. Also very good.
  • Am continuing the non-fiction thing for now, with Anna Keay’s The Restless Republic
• I rather missed the excitement at the time – had other things to get on with – but Forest are staying up!
• Lloyd daynoted again
  • https://perfectpath.co.uk/2023/05/25/thursday-may-25th-2023/

• It’s really annoying when ctrl-k doesn’t work as a shortcut to insert a link somewhere
• It’s the agile mindset that matters for local government (by me)
  • https://sensibletech.co.uk/its-the-agile-mindset-that-matters-for-local-government/
• Two wonderful bit of work (and blogging) by Essex
  • https://servicetransformation.blog.essex.gov.uk/2023/05/12/testing-essex-gov-with-blind-and-low-vision-users/
  • https://servicetransformation.blog.essex.gov.uk/2023/05/17/tales-of-the-private-beta-supertesters-user-research-on-the-new-intranet/
• Learning, More than One Way
  • https://postshift.com/learning-more-than-one-way/
• Bristol Digital’s user experience principles
  • https://bristoldigital.localgov.blog/2023/05/16/ux-principles/
• Making a modern digital council
  • https://www.themj.co.uk/Making-a-modern-digital-council/227884

• I survived my stag do at the weekend, although to be fair, it was a quiet affair. Just me, 3 of my old school mates and my 22 year old son. Wedding is next Saturday, so exciting!
• Despite being split in two following some local gov reorganisation, the digital folk up in Cumbria are still on their blogging A game
  • https://cumbria.localgov.blog/2023/05/12/public-health-health-wellbeing-coaches/
• Testing essex.gov with blind and low vision users
  • https://servicetransformation.blog.essex.gov.uk/2023/05/12/testing-essex-gov-with-blind-and-low-vision-users/

• My birthday passed without incident. Some lovely messages from folk, and some delightful gifts, including some impressively chunky history books, those Penguin ones with the orange spines that look so fabulous on a shelf. Also Peter Rex’s book on Hereward the Wake, which I am really looking forward to.
• OneTeamGov for local government this morning, brilliantly facilitated by Kit Collingwood. Great chats and a lovely group to be a part of.
• Lloyd is continuing his own daily note experiment, and mentions mine, and now I am mentioning that, and so the circle closes. I guess what we are doing is similar to the Dave Winer view of blogging. I’ve just never got my head around using an outliner to do it, so will never go full Winer, I don’t think.
  • https://perfectpath.co.uk/2023/05/12/friday-may-12th-2023/
  • http://scripting.com/
• A terrific conversation with Chris Thompson, who is charge of computers and that at Northumberland Council. First time we’ve spoken properly, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

• It’s my birthday! 44 today.
• It turns out, little did I know, that the links haven’t been working on these notes for some time. No idea why but they aren’t properly being added to the posts in WordPress when I hit publish in Obsidian. I’m going through adding them in manually, which is a pain.
• Another thing lacking in the current setup is a way to tag posts, which might be a useful way to find stuff after I’ve published it. There doesn’t seems to be a way of doing that right now.
• Maybe I need a proper offline blog editor, but other than MarsEdit on the Mac – I’m mostly on a Windows machine during the day – do they even exist any more?
• I wrote a thing the other day about digital culture and mindset and how important they are to organisations wanting to do a bit better in this space. I published it on LinkedIn, which nows feels a bit eccentric and I should probably stick it on here too, or maybe on the SensibleTech site.
  • https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/has-your-council-signed-local-digital-declaration-what-dave-briggs/
• I quite like the look of Traffic by Ben Smith. It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, these books about Silicon Valley companies. I particularly like it when everything goes wrong.
  • https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/678592/traffic-by-ben-smith/
• Lovely (football) story about Aberdeen beating Real Madrid back in 1983. Different times!
  • https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/may/10/alex-ferguson-aberdeen-real-madrid-1983-final-40-years-on
• ‘Condign’ means a punishment that fits the crime
  • https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/condign

• I’ve been rubbish publishing here for a couple of weeks. Been super busy, is my excuse. Nice to see one of my blogging inspirations Lloyd is trying something similar.
  • https://perfectpath.co.uk/2023/05/03/wednesday-may-3rd-2023/
• Books – am currently reading The Ruin of all Witches by Malcolm Gaskill, which is just terrific. I find the early days of the USA fascinating.
  • https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/314807/the-ruin-of-all-witches-by-gaskill-malcolm/9780141991481
• 3 surprising observations about collaboration from developing the local gov IMS
  • https://www.dxw.com/2023/04/collaboration-local-government-income-management-system-project/
• Local Government Service Design Maturity Model – nice work by Newham Council and others
  • https://www.newham.gov.uk/ServiceDesignMaturityModel

• No note yesterday, it was a busy day launching our recruitment campaign
  • https://jobs.digitalbirmingham.org/
• Interesting article about a wonderful song
  • https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/apr/24/wayne-coyne-flaming-lips-do-you-realize
• Great win for Forest tonight! Danilo scored, which shows how much I know.
  • https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65319930
• Got an enquiry about another council wanting to set up a blog on localgov.blog – this makes me happy.
  • https://localgov.blog/

• How Elon Musk Turned the Blue Checkmark Into a Scarlet Letter – I will never tire of stories that point out what a berk Musk is.
  • https://slate.com/technology/2023/04/elon-musk-twitter-blue-checkmarks-verification-lebron-james.html
• Leading Charities in a Digital Society
  • https://public.digital/2023/04/24/leading-charities-in-a-digital-society

• Government should publish user research for the public good
  • https://www.publictechnology.net/articles/opinion/government-should-publish-user-research-public-good
• The cult of bare minimum learning
  • https://postshift.com/the-cult-of-bare-minimum-learning/
• Glucomate – new app to help diabetics tracks their sugar levels
  • https://zachsim.one/blog/2023/4/19/introducing-glucomate
• The end of computer magazines in America – I used to love buying computer magazines in my teens. This was in the mid-nineties, and as a proud owner of an Amiga 500 all my pocket money got spent on magazines where the word Amiga was followed by Format, Power, Shopper amongst other things. The free stuff on the attached floppy disks were always a delight. I’ve not looked at a magazine rack in years, so couldn’t say what the situation in the UK is…
  • https://www.technologizer.com/2023/04/15/the-end-of-computer-magazines-in-america/

• I wasn’t sure about posting yesterday’s note, which was rather limited, mostly because of having a super busy day. But I thought the practice of publishing even short notes is a good one to keep up with
• dxw’s onboarding approach for new staff
  • https://www.dxw.com/2023/04/how-we-do-onboarding-at-dxw/
• Social media is doomed to die
  • https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/18/23672769/social-media-inevitable-death-monetization-growth-hacks
• A rather lovely vertically scrolling website, taking you on a tour of the atmosphere
  • https://neal.fun/space-elevator/
• I finished the Falco book a couple of nights ago. It was ok, 2/5 stars. I think the reason I didn’t enjoy it was because I just didn’t understand the main character. I get that the aim is that he’s a cynical, Marlowe style gumshoe transported to the Roman era. But while Marlowe is believable, and his occasionally idiosyncratic responses to things make sense for the character, I just didn’t find the same to be true of Falco. He just seemed a bit of a berk. Maybe I’ll give book two a go in the future, but I won’t be rushing to, I don’t think.
• Next up is March Violets by Philip Kerr
  • http://philipkerr.org/books/

• No time for notes yesterday, was interviewing all day. So impressed by the calibre of people wanting to work in digital and tech roles in local government. The sector has a bright future if it keeps investing in people like this.
• This guide to content audits looks pretty useful
  • https://lapope.notion.site/Content-audits-a-pragmatic-guide-ce6c08e8e1504f40a0a92370dd4817d7#108aee41ecf24506a432d4ebc9ca8ce5

If you have literally nothing better to do, you can browse the archive of these daily notes.

• Blog formats from Giles Turnbull. Just terrific.
  • https://www.usethehumanvoice.com/formats/
• Super interesting discussion about content moderation and specifically Substack. The use of internet platformsto spread hate speech is a problem as old as the internet, but it’s clearly not good enough for those stewarding platforms to stand back. The ‘Nazi bar’ analogy is new to me but it’s a good one I think.
  • https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/14/substack-ceo-chris-best-doesnt-realize-hes-just-become-the-nazi-bar/
• I’m a member of a couple of Discord communities, but I have absolutely no idea how to navigate them.
  • https://discord.com/
• Had the misery of watching most of Forest v Man Utd yesterday afternoon. The centre of midfield seemed completely absent for most of the game, I am really not sure what Danilo and Freuler bring to the party. Surridge came on up front and didn’t really demonstrate he is up to Premier League quality. It all felt a bit random – perhaps due to the injuries and size of the squad. But I think, especially given Bournemouth’s good form, we have to be likely relegation candidates unless something remarkable happens.
  • https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65223934
• I do wonder how much the double @ sign in Mastodon addresses puts people off. I know it does me. How can you trust something where such a key element is so ugly?
  • https://mastodon.social/@davebriggs

This is a(nother) thing I am trying to get back into the habit of blogging regularly, recording and reflecting.

• I’m using Obsidian as a text editor for these notes. It has a connector to WordPress which means I can publish them at the end of the day with a single click. Having an offline space to be typing into seems to make it easier to leave things unpolished
  • https://obsidian.md/
• I attended OneTeamLocalGov for the first time this morning. Nearly 30 folk there I think, some interesting things discussed – lots around training and skills, as well as re-using tech in councils (so difficult!) and making change happen
  • https://www.oneteamgov.uk/
• Getting back to reading Dave Winer regularly. So dedicated to blogging, openness, better comms, news and sharing. An inspiration!
  • http://scripting.com/
• I have read 20 books this year so far, not bad going. Mostly thriller type things and historical fiction (Sharpe, etc). But also some history and literary stuff. Currently on the first Falco novel by Lindsey Davis. Not sure it’s for me.
  • https://lindseydavis.co.uk/publications/
• I found the discussion between Tom Holland and Paul Kingsnorth pretty gripping. I enjoy the former’s work on The Rest is History podcast hugely, although I find his books a little too broad-brush for my liking. Kingsnorth I am endlessly fascinated by.
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSz0Q7hoqjk